Maybe
by Hemlock Dalise
Summary: Set anytime before Phantom Planet, Danny is thought of as a menace by some of the residents of Amity Park, but an incident with a ghost and a little girl changes some of their minds. Old fic, total rubbish, kept because someone faved it.


It was a balmy Saturday afternoon, and like many teenagers Danny Fenton was dozing in his bedroom. He had been reading on his bed, with the stereo playing in the background. The book, all about the Hubble space probe, was on the floor now, and the hand that had held it was draped over the side of the bed. The stereo had just turned itself off, having reached the end of the CD. He was lying on his back, bright blue eyes half closed, his raven hair splayed across his pillow, not asleep, but sort of on standby.

In the cellar of Danny's house, AKA Fentonworks, the green glow of the various chemicals and ectoplasmic samples littered around the shelves dimly lit the room, revealing it to be less of a cellar and more of a laboratory, full of weapons, energy converters and strange things in little beakers. At one end of the lab, a pair of heavy metal doors inside a round frame seemed to lead straight into the wall, however, as they slipped open a crack a casual observer would have seen that instead of stone or dirt these doors opened onto a swirling vortex of green light, looking more of a liquid, but no more substantial than a hologram. Just beyond it a black mist crept across the floating piece of barren ghost zone rock the portal rested on, and a piece of it curled through the tiny opening. Quickly the rest of the mist followed it as if sucked in by an unseen force, and inside the lab it twisted and piled up over itself, opaque and more like smoke than mist. As it reached the height of a human, the smoke began to dissipate and a pair of luminous eyes glared out. A silhouette could be seen, of what appeared to be a humanoid figure still shrouded in mist. "Finally, free." A dark voice chuckled, and the mist swirled once again, to vanish from sight, leaving nothing behind but what looked like a scorch mark on the polished floor of the laboratory.

A little while later, Danny woke up with a start, thinking he had heard something he listened, wondering what sound had woken him, and bolted upright as he caught again what he was now certain he had heard before, a piercing scream that sounded like it was from a small child. Quickly he checked his windows, then he reached down deep inside himself for that icy cold kernel of power that was always there, and drew it to the surface. A white light flashed at his waist, and a ring of silver-blue light expanded out, splitting into two, one sweeping upwards along his body while the other panned downwards, both disappearing when they had reached as far as they could go. There in the place where Danny Fenton had stood was a boy of the same age, in a black jumpsuit that reached his wrists and ankles, with a white collar and matching white boots and gloves, and a white DP logo on his chest. His hair was white too, and his eyes glowed a bright vibrant green. He was still Danny Fenton, but the name this form went by was Phantom, Danny Phantom. With the flick of a thought he turned semi transparent, like a hologram version of himself, with another thought he disappeared from view completely, and thus invisible and intangible he flew out of his house, through the roof and towards the scream. Once he was far enough away he turned visible again, just in time for another sound, a great cracking crunching noise of breaking stone. Flying above one of the taller buildings that was blocking his view, he noticed that he could see his breath in the air in front of him, his ghost sense was going off. About time too. He smiled, this meant that whatever was causing this mess was a ghost and he could take them out. He looked down past the building that had been in the way and nearly fell out of the sky, the whole building was covered in cracks, parts of it had fallen into the street and neighbouring houses were in a similar state, but what was more worrying was that there was a small child, no more than seven years old, trapped on the roof of the taller building that looked like it could have once been a block of flats. Standing in mid air, laughing as he blasted the buildings again and again, was the ghost that had escaped from the lab, but he stopped as he was blasted sideways by a small stream of green energy. Danny stood, less than a hundred metres away, he had shot the ghost which now turned to face him, grinning madly.

"What do you want?" Danny shouted over the crowd that was huddled in the street, the wreck of a car was blocking the road, the other end of the street may have been clear, but that was where the two ghosts were.

"I am Chaos! Master of destruction, and I am here to make the world mine, in all it's ruined glory once again!" The ghost was clearly visible now; it was humanoid, and apparently male, his skin was pitch black, and he had no mouth or nose, just a pair of luminous blue stars that seemed to be his eyes. His head was the only part of him that still swirled with the dark mist, and it made him look like he had long hair which rippled in the breeze. He was slenderly built, but not skinny, and from the neck down he was obscured by the shadows of a black cloak that appeared to be made of nothing more substantial than his smoke. A hand extended from the opening in the front, though nothing but blackness could be seen through the gap it made. The hand made a fist and twisted sideways, and the ground in the street shook.

"Not if I have anything to say about it!" As Chaos was once again preoccupied with making the building fall, Danny blasted him again, causing him to turn.

If something with no face could be considered grinning evilly, then Chaos was doing so. "So eager to protect these puny mortals." Then he stretched out his hand towards the little girl, clutching a soft toy on the roof. A beam of ectoplasmic energy formed a few centimetres from his palm, and the girl gave a cry and crouched with her arms over her head. She saw a flash of light, but did not feel it hit, and tentatively opened her eyes. Standing in front of her, taking the blast, was Danny Phantom.

As the blast had formed at Chaos's hand, Danny had sped forwards, and as the beam fired he had taken the blast head on, green light spilling out either side of him from the impact. As the beam of ectoplasm stopped and the ghost sagged a little, as if worn out, Danny blinked and patted himself down. "Huh, I was expecting a little more than that, it tickled." Apparently, for all the words ad earthquakes, this ghost was virtually powerless. This certainly made Danny's job easier; as Chaos floated in the street, Danny whipped out his Fenton Thermos and pressed the button. With a flash a stream of blue light sucked the malevolent spectre in, and Danny shoved the lid on and re-attached the Thermos to his belt. He suddenly felt a thump behind him and a weight at his waist, and looked down to see that the little girl on the rooftop had both arms around him, one hand still clutching her teddy bear, and her eyes closed. He smiled down at her and she looked up at him, smiling shakily back. He reached down and hoisted her up in his left arm, stepping off the edge of the building and floating gently back to the ground. The crowd was still crammed at one edge of the street, but as he set the little girl on the ground, unharmed, and she ran towards her mother, they all began to cheer, slowly at first, but rising to a cacophony of sound. Right in the front of the group was the little girl's mother, tears of happiness streaming down her face. She looked up at Danny and smiled, hugging her daughter as the ghost boy flew silently off, leaving everybody that had been there wondering if maybe, just maybe he wasn't such a bad guy after all.


End file.
